Tag Archives: Vengeance

Vengeance stood straighter. “We can banish you from this universe. Don’t think we can’t—”

He didn’t get to finish the sentence. In that moment, Alden’s head changed to that of The Thing That Eats. He wasn’t the only one. With a scream, the head of the woman that the elf had called Necromancer changed too.

Her hands continued to smoke, but she didn’t use them. The Thing’s mouth opened and swallowed the Graffiti Knight, weird, inscribed armor and all. Continue reading Harvest: Part 5→

From behind me, I heard the sound of a seatbelt clasp clicking open. After a few footsteps, Rod pushed his way to the front between Amy and me.

“Hey,” Cassie said, but Rod ignored her.

“The Graffiti Knight. Rumor in the magical community is that the Council got some guy to wear that armor. I heard that it’s cursed or connected to an old god or something. There’s a price for using it, so they only get it out for emergencies.”

Even though I wasn’t sure that he was on our side, I decided to act as if I thought so. “How soon?”

He made a gurgling noise. “I can’t say—-”

Whatever he said after that turned into indecipherable noise, and then he hung up.

I stood there, smelling my own sweat and a faint burned smell that seemed familiar. Then I knew why. It reminded me of the smell my arm had given off when I’d been hit by dragon fire. Continue reading Revelations: Part 10→

The alert also appeared on everyone’s phones, and most likely all of the city’s radio and television stations. After the beeping ended, the message said what they always said—stay in your house until we say it’s safe. Also, the following individuals were released from containment… It listed everyone in the gang we’d fought earlier that day—except for the woman who operated the Eagle suit.

That made sense. She was a normal human, and the city only had ten cells rated for superhuman containment. Why waste one?

I flipped through the pictures, noticing Haley doing the same. The last two pictures showed Alden and Philo, noting that they were the ones who’d broken the others out. Jillian didn’t make the list.

I thought about my parents, all of our parents, and all of the other people in Grand Lake who had no idea what they were facing. Then I thought about Amy’s story and not the most recent one about how she came to be here. I thought about the Bloodmaiden’s discovery of The Thing That Eats and how it had eaten everyone in the kingdom of Rheged.

“You’re going to need to make an exception in your quarantine. The Thing that Eats is an enemy of Bloodmaiden. She knows how to fight it and how to catch it. She made the wards that caught it the first time.”

Taking a step toward the door, Vengeance said, “For someone who practices blood magic?” His lip curled and there was no mistaking the disgust in his voice. “Never. I’ve met blood mages and some of them seemed like decent people at first. But I’ve never met one that wasn’t eventually corrupted by the magic that they thought served them.” Continue reading Share The Love: Part 6→

Haley took advantage of his pause to interject, “Wait. We didn’t loose anything. We captured a creature in Turkmenistan. It only got away after Reliquary took it somewhere, and it doesn’t sound like he let it loose either. It sounds like he was attacked.”

Vengeance turned to look at her. “We know he was attacked. Our people were with him. Funny how the prodigal son comes back for help when he can’t handle it alone—”

Fifteen minutes later, we were parking in the Grand Lake Heroes’ League’s visible headquarters, having taken the underground tunnel from the regular HQ in my van. “We” in this case meant Haley, Camille, Vaughn and me. We’d chosen the group based on the fact that we all lived in the biggest dorm on campus, making it easy to meet up.

“Why is this guy even here?” Vaughn asked as he stepped out of the van’s side door. He wore one of the new costumes I’d designed, but he’d set it to be replacement for his original costume. It looked like black leather, but didn’t have the straps that had made me compare his first costume to bondage gear.

“I don’t know,” I said, crossing in front of the van. “I’m betting that it’s got something to do with The Thing That Eats because the timing is too coincidental.” Continue reading Share The Love: Part 4→

The Hangman who had caught Marcus swung the rope end of the noose toward Water. He froze as it touched his neck, the rope tying itself into a second noose. However quickly he thought he could change, Water ended up in human form.

According to “Double V,” the Hangmen were dead people given the chance to live a second time. I didn’t remember the article being clear on why.

I understood how the writer might have missed that detail. The Hangmen didn’t seem particularly talkative. In fact, they didn’t say anything at all as they got off the remains of the table and onto the (now heavily scratched) wooden floor.

This looks interesting, Daniel thought, but we don’t have time to follow it all the way through. I’m going to have him free associate.

Scattered memories of passing years — Martin Magnus conducting a ceremony in a dark room, and handing Bouman a cup. Letters and couriers appearing in the dead of night carrying secret messages… Using an expanding telepathic awareness to enter the mind of one official after another… The mayor’s inspection of a gun wielding assassin’s now irreparably damaged mind…

A recent memory — A red-haired man in a black suit and sunglasses sat in the mayor’s study upstairs. I could feel a mixture of anticipation and fear as the mayor looked across the desk.Continue reading In the Public Eye: Part 53→